


Uneasy Lies the Head

by Prefiera_de_Gryfalco



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 01:45:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8383069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prefiera_de_Gryfalco/pseuds/Prefiera_de_Gryfalco
Summary: After this much pain and loss and with all he has been through, how much more can one man take?  A very dark exploration of what may have happened if Negan made Rick go through with cutting off Carl's arm.  One shot post S7E1.





	

After climbing down from the camper, the lone figure stumbled up to the bridge on foot where he had been only a mere hour before.  The man with the sweat-soaked dark curly hair and lean frame had begged leave of the rest of the group upon their return to Alexandria. Everyone was too involved in their own personal hell to dare stop him from going back out once they were back in the safe zone.

He was in such a daze, he had difficulty not falling as he stepped over the bodies of the dozens of the dead as he approached the underpass and gazed up. The smoke from the smoldering pile of timbers that hours ago was ablaze stung his eyes still raw from emotion. But no more tears. He was numb.

 

***

Rick hated himself for his weakness more than anything in that one moment, but he knew even in the utter hysteria that it was his duty to get his family and friends out alive. Negan had promised Carl a doctor if Rick obeyed and a bludgeoning if he did not.  He had no choice.  Sobbing, Rick had inhaled sharply and screamed as the hatchet crashed down onto his only son's arm. The dull small axe crushed as much as it cut through the radius and ulna and macerated muscle and skin.

Rick howled the cry of an anguished beast as he continued to hack at his beloved son.  The lower forearm finally came free and Negan laughed as he held it aloft to the crowd and shoved it in Rick's devastated face.  Miraculously, Carl passed out quickly from the pain and did not stir.  Rick hoped to whatever god was left in this world that the tourniquet held and his son could be healed. Maybe Carl would even forgive him some day.

"Please...please...no more..." groveled Rick as the bloody hatchet slipped out of his hands. He gulped back tears and snot and hate and grief.  Utterly broken, he only wanted the nightmare to end.  Surely there was no more pound of flesh this monster wanted.  The rest of the group sat cowering in the dust likewise silently pleading for no more devastation.  Negan sauntered over to the unconscious Carl and inspected the now amputated limb.

"Not bad, Rick!  I can tell you have had some practice with that thing.  But you see, Rick, there's one small problem.  That belt? It's mine. Just like you are mine. And he is mine. And all your people are all mine. So to drive home the lesson, I'm going to need my fucking belt back.  Now."

"NO!" screamed Michonne and Rick simultaneously.  She leapt to her feet from her spot in the lineup while Rick clawed his way onto top of his prone and unconscious son to plead for his life.  Simon and the other henchmen caught her by the arms and they endured a rain of blows under the maddened Michonne before they wrenched her back down again to her knees.

"Enough! Shit, I told you no more interruptions!  They must understand!"  snarled Negan.  "Lucille!  Help Rick fucking understand!"

He spun around and cracked her hard on the temple with a full windup from the dreaded bat.

The strongest woman Rick had ever known and yet come to love crumpled to the ground near his feet. She did not move for a long moment, then uttered a groan, turned to look up at him and struggled hard to meet Rick's gaze one last time. Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly as the life faded from her fathomless dark eyes while the blood pooled swiftly under her head.  A detached thought occurred to him that he had never even told her that he loved her.  That he was too afraid to just in case he lost her, even though surely she know.  Perhaps that was what she was telling him as she died.  She gave a last hitching gasp and then breathed no more.

Carl had already turned an ashy gray from shock lying face first on the ground, but he soon joined his father's love in death as his own blood came gushing out when Negan viciously ripped the belt off the young man's limp left bicep.  The slick crimson of their life force flowed together on the ground.   Rick desperately pulled Carl into his lap to do something, do anything as the spurting blood slowed to a trickle as his son's heart beat slowed to a stop.  He wailed helplessly over their fallen bodies and lowered Carl so he could clutch Michonne, his best friend and soulmate, his lover and his rock, one last time. He would never see them ever again and it was all his fault. His hubris and addiction to being in charge was the cause of their destruction and he knew he could never atone.

"I love you...I love you...I love you...it was all my fault!" murmured the broken man as if willing their now lifeless bodies to hear and accept his grief.

Rick was completely undone. He finally retched as their blood ran over his hands and knees as he sat in the dirt.  Expecting more punishment and even desiring it, the once proud leader lowered his head waiting for his own cudgel to fall from this butcher of his family.  But it never did.  Lucille's blood lust seemed to be finally slaked. The butcher looked down him appraisingly for several moments as Rick continued to sob.

Now apparently satisfied with the mere shell of humanity that hardly dare peer back at him with feral unseeing blue eyes, Negan simply snorted a derisive laugh and reminded them that they were his now.  He instructed his men to leave them a truck and the camper.  They took snapshots of the carnage and left them.  

The decimated group was silent for many moments until Maggie impossibly struggled to her feet.  

 

*** 

He shuffled past the walkers up the embankment to the top of the overpass, worn boots covered in dust and gore. Racked with grief, he saw a vision of of his murdered family and friends explode before his tortured sight.  They waited for him silently for many minutes as he looked at them in awe and misery.  

Lori looking sad but knowing.  Herschel smiling benignly with his son-in-law Glenn.  Abraham proud and strong.  Sophia. Dale.  Andrea.  T-Dog.  Bob. Beth. Tyreese. Jessie. Even Shane as he had been in days gone by.  The last were his two great loves:  Michonne and Carl.  She placed her arm around his son then smiled warmly as the morning sun for him.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," she said softly.  "But do not regret the pain, my love.  We will all be together again.  Soon."

"Just a matter of time," said Hershel with that grandfatherly drawl and a twinkle in his wizened eyes as he opened Glenn's gifted pocket watch and gave it long look.  Glenn and Herschel exchanged glances and nodded. 

Rick turned to Carl and the words begging forgiveness caught in his throat.

"It's okay, Dad.  There's nothing to forgive.  And don't worry about Judith.  We know she's in good hands.  We'll all be watching over her for a long time to come.  This is her world now.  Her time."

Rick bowed his head and smiled for the first time in what seemed like eons.  They waited to show him the way.    

He stepped up to the guardrails and knelt to grasp the length of metal hanging below before straightening himself. He slowly pulled the chain up where the walker originally killed by the Saviors had dangled. His shaking hands became steady as he bowed and lowered the bloodied links over his head.

King Shit had truly been crowned, he thought wistfully.  But it was nothing that he did not deserve.  It would be good to be free at last.  The chain fell around his neck. He stared down at the ground ready to meet those he loved and lost, one last single tear streaming down his cheek.  

He stepped off the bridge and into the abyss.

**Author's Note:**

> "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."--from Henry IV, Part II by William Shakespeare


End file.
